1. I know a lot of folks don't care much for Newsarama. Personally I like it fine, but then I'm not going there looking for all of my comic internet addiction needs. I think it fills its particular niche well.
2. And one of the things I do enjoy there is the regularly-scehduled comic book promotions aimed at keeping up the readers' interest. I don't read them all, just the ones focused on titles of particular interest to me for whatever reason. And, as I mention in the just-linked post, they seem to serve that purpose--I kept on being interested in what was coming up next in Countdown right up until the end.
By the way, there's a new regularly-scheduled promo up for Captain America. Not that I need any encouragement whatsoever to keep buying that book, but I still enjoy the advance peek into the next issue. They've had the feature for quite a while, some variation on the "Captain America is still dead" theme, but haven't always done the preview pages, and that's kind of neat as well--here the images are black and white, with no dialogue of course, which is suppose is the bare minimum of spoiling you can do, and it's cool. (Next month's looks excellent, by the way--it'll be good to see more of the Falcon.)
I'm also a fan of previews but would probably be more of one if I actually bought my comics from a store every week--by which I mean that in that case I'd be a better target for that sort of marketing. As it is, this stuff doesn't necessarily affect my purchasing. I preorder online and get my books in the mail. So while an occasional preview might get me to order that book as a back issue when it becomes available, or at least to keep an eye out for the trade eventually, for the most part I don't seem to bother.
I read features and interviews if they're to do with a book I'm already interested in, and I read them if they're about an upcoming book that sounds good. Since these often take place far in advance of a title being solicited, that bit of marketing works pretty well on me.
3. See, I don't read my comics with all that critical of an eye, and by that I mean that I tend to go into them assuming I'll like them. Generally, I do. If I find that I'm not enjoying a book I'll give it some time to pick up, but I'll eventually drop it--I dropped Iron Man and apparently that's generally considered to be quite good, but I found myself being put to sleep by it. (I'm sure it doesn't help that the character doesn't appeal to me as much as he used to, post-Civil War.) If I weren't actually spending money on them, I'd probably give them longer before giving up.
4. And as for the comic internet, well, I pretty much read it all. (All the stuff that includes discussion of superheroes. I don't read the manga-oriented blogs, or those that focus solely on independent titles, because I don't tend to read those.) The lengthy detailed reviews and the two-liners, the picture posts and the opinion pieces, the liberal and the conservative comic readers, the erudite and the grammatically-challenged, the safe and the controversial, the jaded old fans and the bright sparkling newbies. One thing this means is that I have 158 comic-related feeds in my Bloglines, and I don't read all of them every day. (I tend to sit down for a few hours on the weekend and catch up.) Of course there are some sites I make a point of reading every day, and no, I'm not going to name them. :)
1 comment:
158? I thought I was hardcore. I salute you!
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